The Real Estate Consultancy of the Decade, CEE – JLL
One thing that can be said almost without doubt is that no other agency in Poland could have matched the performance of JLL over the last decade
The consultancy has acted in an advisory capacity for 1,500 office lease transactions (totalling 2.3 mln sqm), 3,200 retail leases (650,000 sqm), 300 warehouse leases (5.6 mln sqm) and more than EUR 17.3 bln of sale and purchase deals. It has also been involved in some of the largest and most complex investment deals, such as the EUR 1 bln purchase of the M1 portfolio by Chariot Top Group, the sale of a 75 pct stake in EPP’s EUR 1.2 bln platform and the EUR 386 mln sale of the Warsaw Spire office tower, to mention but a few.
“Our business successes, such as facilitating market deals valued at billions of złoty as well as some of the most spectacular lease agreements, are of course highly significant. However, what pleases me the most is the excellent working atmosphere at JLL,” says Tomasz Trzósło, the managing director of JLL in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. Over the last ten years, the workforce of the Polish branch of JLL has increased by a factor of fifteen – from 100 employees to more than 1,500. Significantly, in contrast to the many companies that have reduced their staffing levels since the beginning of the decade, JLL has managed to retain its people. Today the company is proud of its high rate of employee retention. “It’s those who have been employed by JLL for around twenty years who are the people most responsible for the growth of our consultancy business,” insists Tomasz Trzósło. The company’s financial results are another measure of how it has grown. In 2009 JLL generated a profit of PLN 1.9 mln and PLN 47 mln in revenue, but in 2018 both figures had increased tenfold to PLN 16.7 mln and PLN 623 mln, respectively.
The last decade has also been a time of growth for JLL through acquisitions and mergers. This started with the adoption of a team specialising in the lease of warehouse and industrial space from Cushman & Wakefield. A year later, the company announced a merger with rival consultancy King Sturge, and then in 2015 acquired interior design and fit-out specialists Tétris. In December 2018, the company joined forces with Reas, thus gaining a team of experts in the residential market, student halls and nursing homes. Over the last ten years, the company has also launched its own customer service portals for offices (bazabiur.pl) and warehouses (warehousey.pl) and has added to its knowledge and competences with consultancy services for the hotel market, flexible office space and the working environment. “Our main goal was and will continue to be to improve the quality of the services we provide, both through the use of technology and also by identifying areas we can develop in. We are constantly working on offering an even more innovative portfolio of services to our clients. One example is our strong entry into residential consulting through joining forces with Reas; another was our earlier expansion into design & build services,” explains Tomasz Trzósło.
The consultancy has a strategy to introduce further innovations, which includes its JLL Spark initiative, which has involved setting up the JLL Spark Global Venture Fund to invest in proptech firms. “Technology companies operating in the real estate sector are the future of consultancies and JLL has the ambition to be the leader in this field,” insists Tomasz Trzósło.
The head of JLL also claims that the award for the best Polish real estate agency of the decade is first and foremost a notable distinction for all the employees of the company. “Without such a well-coordinated team, its knowledge, commitment and hard work, we would not have achieved the position of leader among real estate consultancies in Poland. And this is the perfect moment to thank everyone once again,” adds Tomasz Trzósło, who, as we now know, will be leaving the company in May 2020 to take up the role of CEO of Polish retail investment giant EPP. Where will JLL be ten years from now? “In the past we were able to surprise the market with our investment decisions and on many occasions with the shifts in our business. The company will certainly still be able to pull off such surprises into future,” concludes Tomasz Trzósło. RO
